19 Self-editing Tips

Now that I’ve published my first novel, To Hunt a Sub, I can say from experience that writing it and editing it took equally long periods of time (and marketing is just as involved). After finishing the final rough draft (yeah, sure) and before emailing it to an editor, I wanted it as clean possible. I searched through a wide collection of self-editing books like these:

Don’t have too many prepositional phrases in a sentence. There’s no set rule, but if you get lost before the sentence ends, you have too many.

Secure each chapter in place and time. A quick reminder of where characters are and whether it’s in the present or past is good enough.

Don’t repeat yourself. It’s tempting to retell events when a character is talking to someone who didn’t live through the last few chapters, but summarize instead–briefly. Your audience already knows this material.

Verify that time tracks correctly in your novel. Make sure the day is correct and that characters have enough time to get from here to there in the timeline.

Verify that your characters are wearing the correct clothing and have the right reactions for their position in the timeline. For example, if they were in a car accident, when they appear again in the novel, make sure they act accordingly.

Describe with all senses. Add what your character smelled or heard along with what s/he saw.

Don’t tell what you’re showing. Use one or the other, preferably showing.

A great way to find these mis-writings is with Ctrl+F, the universal Find shortkey. It will highlight all instances of whatever you’re searching on the page.

What these don’t address is character development, plotting, or living scenes so you’ll still have to deal with those prior to sending it to your editor.

What are your secrets to self-editing? I’d love to add it to this list.

What great tips!!! I had an editor for my freelance work who wouldn’t let me use is, are, was, or were. Which is ridiculous because it DOES have a purpose. It isn’t always a sign you’re using passive voice!!! But it did force me to come up with more powerful words to replace those words and as a result, my writing was more powerful.

Thanks, Stephanie. Interesting she eliminated them entirely. As you say, they are useful to slow things down, destress them, transition–lots of reasons. That’s why I limit them, but not eliminate. I too have found it makes a huge difference in my writing.

Hi. “To be” verbs should be avoided. I think you reference this when you say avoid “was” “is” “were” etc. Just in case . . . Your list is “very” good.😉

Excising jargon and academic mumbo jumbo is another big one. I recently read something on the NY TImes site that included the phrase “I advised her to instrumentalize her priorities”. This, supposedly, from someone who teaches writing.

yes, that’s exactly why. Can you see a set of eyes roving through a room? Odd. Rather, use ‘gaze’. Or, in a situation like, “His eyes peered through the window”, just say, “He peered through the window”.

Jacqui, this is a great list of tools to fix your story. Any story will benefit by application of these tips.

The one I’m often guilty of: getting rid of the arty-farty stuff that doesn’t contribute. You’ll remember that in one of my books, every chapter began with a poem about trees. I spent many (many) hours looking for appropriate poetry – then spent about 30 minutes removing every single one of them. It cut my story by thousands of words. Better, it allowed the story to breathe on its own. If a story’s voice is weak, a little jingle someone else wrote isn’t going to build the orchestra the book needs.

Reblogged this on Wendy Unsworth and commented:
From Jacqui Murray at Wordreams a useful and (for me 😊) Perfectly timed checklist for those of us in editing mode. Thanks for sharing Jacqui – I will be pinning this on my wall!

Jacuqi, a BIG thank you for sharing this list – it is brilliant!! 😀😀 I’m reading through it, nodding, saying, yes, of course, so obvious but things I’ve missed. The -ing words appear far too often in my writing and love the idea of changing the negative to a positive word, also time and character verification…so much here. Printing this out and it’s going on my wall!! 😀😀(just read this through again and lots of ‘ings’!! Arghh!)

You’ll be surprised what a difference such simple changes make in your writing. Then, you can use the unchanged grammar when you want to make the story sound more passive, less active, or some such feeling.

About Me

Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy, and the thriller, To Hunt a Sub. She is also the author/editor of over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for TeachHUB, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her books at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.